The Mind of a Bee

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He began to realise some individual bees were more curious and confident than others. “You also find the odd ‘genius bee’ that does something better than all the other individuals of a colony, or indeed all the other bees we’ve tested..” You find the odd ‘genius bee’ that does something better than all the other individuals of a colony. Lars Chittka Written with moments of levity and soaked in curiosity, The Mind of a Bee is a delight."—Eliza Middleton, The Conversation

The Mind of a Bee - Lars Chittka: 9780691180472 - AbeBooks The Mind of a Bee - Lars Chittka: 9780691180472 - AbeBooks

Chittka proves that bees have tremendous levels of intelligence, and quite possibly consciousness. Seriously.. think about that. If insects are clearly capable of so much, what does that imply for the multitude of life that surrounds us, which we honor so rarely! The is the prototypical 5-star book: approachable and entertaining, while profound and fascinating. Stel dat een blinde al tastend het onderscheid heeft leren maken tussen een kubus en een bol. Als hij opeens weer zou kunnen zien, zou hij die kubus en bol dan louter op het zicht herkennen? Dat vroeg de Ierse filosoof William Molyneux zich in 1688 af. Moeilijk te beantwoorden, dacht de Duitse, in Londen werkende zoöloog en etholoog Lars Chittka een paar jaar geleden, want hoe zet je zo’n experiment op? Met mensen leek het hem onmogelijk, maar misschien lukte het wel met bijen. In een pikdonkere omgeving liet hij een bij los op een paar bolletjes waar een druppel nectar in verborgen zat en op een paar kubussen zonder nectar. Eens het beestje het verschil tussen de twee kende, stak hij het licht aan en plaatste hij de bolletjes en kubussen in een afgesloten petrischaaltje zodat de bij alleen de vormen kon zien. Het diertje vloog meteen naar de bolletjes.

Lars Chittka is an ideal guide to the rich sensory world of bees and to their surprisingly sophisticated powers of cognition. Beautifully illustrated and filled with insights from decades of research, The Mind of a Bee combines scholarship and storytelling in nothing less than a tour de force. Highly recommended for any serious bee enthusiast!”—Thor Hanson, author of Buzz: The Nature and Necessity of Bees

The Mind of a Bee by Lars Chittka | Goodreads The Mind of a Bee by Lars Chittka | Goodreads

He thinks the level of sophisticated cognition bees exhibit means it’s unlikely they do not feel any emotions at all. “Sentience is about the capacity to have feelings,” he says. “And what we’re seeing now is some evidence that there are these ... emotion-like states in bees.” https://www.bing.com/search?q=top+beekeeping+blogs&cvid=c7609ca748b24b878b30bbc0cc724f50&aqs=edge.0.69i59i450l8…8.88103048j0j4&FORM=ANAB01&PC=HCTS Leafcutter Bee Update. In every chapter, Chittka weaves together older and recent investigations. Thus, he charts the history of all the important discoveries made around bee intelligence that are the foundation to present day research and new knowledge. He shares details too about the lives of scientists, such as Karl von Frisch, who made discoveries about honey bee colour learning and dance-language communication at a difficult time in Nazi Germany. Although the book is mostly about the work that Chittka and his team have carried out, it is clear that they have relied heavily on the findings of other scientists to help them place the pieces of the complex jigsaw of bee cognition in the correct places. Chittka’s scientific work has been carried out mainly with bumble bees living in laboratory settings, but he has also conducted research with honey bees in the field. The anatomy and physiology of a worker bee’s brain and sensory systems are described in good detail. Likewise, for a bee’s learning process including information about acquisition and recall. The topic of pain is covered and we learn that, like us, insects have receptors that register tissue damage and pain but that alarm pheromones flood their nervous systems with built in painkillers making them perhaps unaware of injuries. This book is perhaps a must-read for those interested in autonomous AI. The central question is: "how do we probe the mind of a bee to figure out what's going on?" Does knowing the code of an AI exempt us from this kind of study?Having already read Honeybee Democracy, which is referenced quite often in this book, and The Lives of Bees: The Untold Story of the Honey Bee in the Wild, I had a solid base before starting this one, but I think reading this book first would have been better. It's broader in its scope, so if you haven't read Seeley's yet, you may want to start here instead. Definitely read Honeybee Democracy afterwards, though, since it details the waggle dance and the social structure of bees, and it's fascinating. Also referenced assiduously is Karl von Frisch, who was a giant in this field of study. I have yet to read any of his books because I think they're even more technical than Seeley's, but Animal Architecture is calling my name.

The Mind of a Bee - Linnean Society of London The Mind of a Bee - Linnean Society of London

I’ve referred to William Kirk’s book in an endeavour to find out the source but I’m still not sure so I’m going to have to collect some pollen for microscopy analysis. It will help me to measure the size of a pollen grain and examine its surface to give me a clue. Our blue pollen looks like queen Anne’s thimble but I am not familiar with this plant though it may grow in a nearby garden. I’ve seen blue Phacelia tanacetifolia pollen before and it may be growing locally and producing this lovely pollen. We have no local crops of phacelia but it is one of top plants for potential honey yields, and the pollen contains some of the highest protein levels in plants so it’s very desirable for honey bees. Phacelia in FIfe. Microscopy Results. Chittka makes a convincing argument for individual variability in bees personalities and why and how their choices may be affected by their size, which correlates to how much they were fed as larvae, and any other predispositions that make them better at one task or another, or more or less adventurous and relentless in their pursuit of pollen and nectar, and even their preference for one or the other. The experiments to study the bees' behaviour were really interesting. You'd think it would be easier to confuse a bee so they'd get a little lost, but they haven't been getting enough credit for how good they are at navigating the world. A wonderful read. Bees don’t have eardrums, so they don’t hear like humans, but they do hear. A new human that has never gone to a heavy metal concert hears 20-20,000 Hz. Bees feel air movements with their antenna, sensing sound waves ranging from 20-500 Hz, and can feel hive vibrations with their feet. Like Rhianna said, “let the bass from the speakers run through ya sneakers.” (Or was that Bee-yoncé?) It takes them only a dozen to two dozen training sessions to become “proficient face recognisers”, he said. But when Chittka deliberately trained a “demonstrator bee” to carry out a task in a sub-optimal way, the “observer bee” would not simply ape the demonstrator and copy the action she had seen, but would spontaneously improve her technique to solve the task more efficiently “without any kind of trial and error”.Save Breaking Strongholds of the Mind- Intensive to your collection. Share Breaking Strongholds of the Mind- Intensive with your friends. The time that insects were seen as little machines, incapable of complex thought, emotions, and learning, is far behind us. We can wish for no better guide than Lars Chittka for an accessible introduction to the wonders of bee intelligence.”―Frans de Waal, author of Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?